Just took my second pt got the same score Forum

[azditamo]

So I took a class a month ago the class met once a week at the end of it we took a pt and i scored in the 150's. Now I started studying on my own and after roughly another month I took a pt and scored almost the same. I took the preptest a test and got destroyed on the game section everything else I did ok. My question aside from learning from my errors is what can I do to make sure the next time I do pt I'm in the 160s at least? The score and the game
Section of this test left me disheveled, with thoughts like all this time studying and I didn't go up a single pount from my last pt. I have not went through the lg books even once but I studied up to advance linear in the lg book strengthen/weaken assumption flaw in the lr book. I just thought doing a month of studying would have translated into a couple points increase in a pt. Any hepl or advice on what I should do next would be appreciated. Thank you.

[JasonH]

For me it was roughly 10-11 tests before I could develop a new tier of scoring. 160s, 165s, 170s.

Everyone is different though. I spent my entire spring break at the library 6 of the 7 days studying RC. At the end of the week I didn't see any recognizable improvement. That was probably the most demoralizing experience I had during my preparation. You'll get there, just takes practice.

During the early stages, your improvement will come mostly from familiarizing yourself with the test. After that it gets a little more difficult.

[crumpetsandtea]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

[azditamo]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

I have been using the guides on tls with the lg and manhatthan books. I study roughly 2-3 hours a day. I work 40-45 hours but now close to 40 hours so I can study a little bit more. So what I have been doing is following pityphike's guide to a t printing out three copies of each game and doing it over and oer again until I understand it. That's how I drill lg as for lr I'm not drilling per se more so just going though the first 6 chapters of the books to get the fudmanetals down and now with this pt I know I need to get hen down even more.

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

They were similliar as in test conditions and tried to resemble actual testing conditions the occasionally noise and whatnot. The break down the same, only difference on the last test I did horrible on the rc and this test lg got me.

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

You say calm your mind, how did you do that? I was never good at that, I am consistently thinking and have thought running through my mind even as I am pting. I mean things other than the test material. I need to work on focus.

[laww]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

Hmmm...

I took my first PT and my scaled score was 166. I got 2 wrong on LG and only like 4 or 5 wrong on RC. I got hammered on LR.

Even now I'm getting owned in LR. I think RC is actually easy. I spent a week on it and holy god.. if you can mentally understand each paragraph you're golden. LR though.. I'm an idiot when it comes to LR.

[laww]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

I have been using the guides on tls with the lg and manhatthan books. I study roughly 2-3 hours a day. I work 40-45 hours but now close to 40 hours so I can study a little bit more. So what I have been doing is following pityphike's guide to a t printing out three copies of each game and doing it over and oer again until I understand it. That's how I drill lg as for lr I'm not drilling per se more so just going though the first 6 chapters of the books to get the fudmanetals down and now with this pt I know I need to get hen down even more.

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

They were similliar as in test conditions and tried to resemble actual testing conditions the occasionally noise and whatnot. The break down the same, only difference on the last test I did horrible on the rc and this test lg got me.

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

You say calm your mind, how did you do that? I was never good at that, I am consistently thinking and have thought running through my mind even as I am pting. I mean things other than the test material. I need to work on focus.

Sleep well, eat well, exercise. Meditate if you must. Keep distractions at bay. Do you need to play video games right now or are you better off putting your mind to work on the LSAT? BOOM -you're focused-

[azditamo]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

I have been using the guides on tls with the lg and manhatthan books. I study roughly 2-3 hours a day. I work 40-45 hours but now close to 40 hours so I can study a little bit more. So what I have been doing is following pityphike's guide to a t printing out three copies of each game and doing it over and oer again until I understand it. That's how I drill lg as for lr I'm not drilling per se more so just going though the first 6 chapters of the books to get the fudmanetals down and now with this pt I know I need to get hen down even more.

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

They were similliar as in test conditions and tried to resemble actual testing conditions the occasionally noise and whatnot. The break down the same, only difference on the last test I did horrible on the rc and this test lg got me.

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

You say calm your mind, how did you do that? I was never good at that, I am consistently thinking and have thought running through my mind even as I am pting. I mean things other than the test material. I need to work on focus.

Sleep well, eat well, exercise. Meditate if you must. Keep distractions at bay. Do you need to play video games right now or are you better off putting your mind to work on the LSAT? BOOM -you're focused-

The latter of the two but there are days when I need to take a break and then I just watch a movie catch up on sleep. You know me time stuff. This helped. Thanks to everybody who replied. I won't let it get me down just have to get back on that horse and hope I don't get trampled. <--- weak joke but it made me laugh.

[crumpetsandtea]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

I have been using the guides on tls with the lg and manhatthan books. I study roughly 2-3 hours a day. I work 40-45 hours but now close to 40 hours so I can study a little bit more. So what I have been doing is following pityphike's guide to a t printing out three copies of each game and doing it over and oer again until I understand it. That's how I drill lg as for lr I'm not drilling per se more so just going though the first 6 chapters of the books to get the fudmanetals down and now with this pt I know I need to get hen down even more.

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

They were similliar as in test conditions and tried to resemble actual testing conditions the occasionally noise and whatnot. The break down the same, only difference on the last test I did horrible on the rc and this test lg got me.

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

You say calm your mind, how did you do that? I was never good at that, I am consistently thinking and have thought running through my mind even as I am pting. I mean things other than the test material. I need to work on focus.

Alright man, protip - don't answer my questions inside my quote box, lol. I almost didn't see that you had replied to anything.

1)Okay, I would recommend the Powerscore Bibles. I found them very helpful. What's your worst section? LR? Keep drilling and don't even touch tests until you're getting near-100% accuracy on your drills, otherwise you're jsut wasting tests. Time your questions - give yourself (35 min divided by however many questions) worth of time for each question. GO BACK OVER THE QUESTIONS THOROUGHLY. Don't just read the right answer and go "Oh ok that's why its right, moving on." Go through every single question and give yourself a reason for why it is wrong. This way, you get used to spotting fallacies and wrong questions as much as you get used to seeing right answers. For LG, it's really just practice. LG is not difficult, it's just a series of steps that you have to apply to every game. Very methodical.

2) By breakdown I meant how many did you miss in each section for each of the tests? So it seems like RC gave you trouble before, what have you been doing to work on your RC skills?

3) That's like the last thing you need to be focusing on right now. You should be focusing on improving your skills. You need to take a good long look at how you are studying and patterns in your missed questions. STOP taking PTs. First accomplish mastery of the test. You're a long way off from worrying about test-day issues like calming your mind. Step 1 is learning the tricks (via Powerscore or something). Step 2 is practicing until you're at almost 100% accuracy on untimed drills. Step 3 is taking full length tests under strict conditions. Once you're scoring in the high 160s to low 170s, step 4 is to cut your time for each section down by 5 minutes and take the test using only 30 minute sections (preferably no or very little, like 10 seconds, of break between each section). Then, once you are consistently scoring 168-180 in those conditions, THEN you start thinking about the mental component.

Having a calm mind is pointless if you don't know the LSAT like the back of your hand. And knowing the LSAT well will help you maintain a sense of calm.

[bp shinners]

My question aside from learning from my errors is what can I do to make sure the next time I do pt I'm in the 160s at least?

You're approaching score increases all wrong. While it sucks to see the same score twice, you also shouldn't expect a miraculous jump in your performance. LSAT prep is an exercise in incremental gains. You'll see a couple points here and there, which will eventually add up to a large score increase. But for most people, it's not a switch that's flipped to suddenly high performance.

[azditamo]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

Hmmm...

I took my first PT and my scaled score was 166. I got 2 wrong on LG and only like 4 or 5 wrong on RC. I got hammered on LR.

Even now I'm getting owned in LR. I think RC is actually easy. I spent a week on it and holy god.. if you can mentally understand each paragraph you're golden. LR though.. I'm an idiot when it comes to LR.

What pt did you take?

[azditamo]

1) What have you been doing to study? How often do you study, what materials do you use, how consistent are you about going back over mistakes and doing practice?

I have been using the guides on tls with the lg and manhatthan books. I study roughly 2-3 hours a day. I work 40-45 hours but now close to 40 hours so I can study a little bit more. So what I have been doing is following pityphike's guide to a t printing out three copies of each game and doing it over and oer again until I understand it. That's how I drill lg as for lr I'm not drilling per se more so just going though the first 6 chapters of the books to get the fudmanetals down and now with this pt I know I need to get hen down even more.

2) What were the breakdowns for your 2 PTs (aka, how many did you miss in each section)? How were the testing conditions? Were there any similarities or patterns between the questions you missed in the first PT and the questions you missed in the second?

They were similliar as in test conditions and tried to resemble actual testing conditions the occasionally noise and whatnot. The break down the same, only difference on the last test I did horrible on the rc and this test lg got me.

3) These things happen. My first LSAT was a 168. For my retake, I studied for half a year, did 30 PTs, did all the Powerscore Bibles, and scored a 169. It was pretty fucking crushing. For my second retake, I did 5 PTs, focused on calming my nerves, and I got a 176. Doing well on the LSAT requires a lot of practice, a calm mind, and a bit of luck. Don't let one PT (especially one of your first few) discourage you.

You say calm your mind, how did you do that? I was never good at that, I am consistently thinking and have thought running through my mind even as I am pting. I mean things other than the test material. I need to work on focus.

Alright man, protip - don't answer my questions inside my quote box, lol. I almost didn't see that you had replied to anything.

1)Okay, I would recommend the Powerscore Bibles. I found them very helpful. What's your worst section? LR? Keep drilling and don't even touch tests until you're getting near-100% accuracy on your drills, otherwise you're jsut wasting tests. Time your questions - give yourself (35 min divided by however many questions) worth of time for each question. GO BACK OVER THE QUESTIONS THOROUGHLY. Don't just read the right answer and go "Oh ok that's why its right, moving on." Go through every single question and give yourself a reason for why it is wrong. This way, you get used to spotting fallacies and wrong questions as much as you get used to seeing right answers. For LG, it's really just practice. LG is not difficult, it's just a series of steps that you have to apply to every game. Very methodical.

2) By breakdown I meant how many did you miss in each section for each of the tests? So it seems like RC gave you trouble before, what have you been doing to work on your RC skills?

3) That's like the last thing you need to be focusing on right now. You should be focusing on improving your skills. You need to take a good long look at how you are studying and patterns in your missed questions. STOP taking PTs. First accomplish mastery of the test. You're a long way off from worrying about test-day issues like calming your mind. Step 1 is learning the tricks (via Powerscore or something). Step 2 is practicing until you're at almost 100% accuracy on untimed drills. Step 3 is taking full length tests under strict conditions. Once you're scoring in the high 160s to low 170s, step 4 is to cut your time for each section down by 5 minutes and take the test using only 30 minute sections (preferably no or very little, like 10 seconds, of break between each section). Then, once you are consistently scoring 168-180 in those conditions, THEN you start thinking about the mental component.

Having a calm mind is pointless if you don't know the LSAT like the back of your hand. And knowing the LSAT well will help you maintain a sense of calm.

1. Yeah you are right, LG is not difficult, I just did bad because I haven't went through the lg book all the way through. So when I was faced with a lg that I have not seen before, I got tripped up,because I did not know how to approach it correctly That is an easy fix though, just more practice and drilling.

2. lr section 1 (-10) Rc section 2 (-8) and the worst part the lg (-14) and lr section 4 (-10). Just got rocked on lg the second and that last game were too hard for me. To answer your question nothing really, I just took little notes there and there and put lines to give my self some sort of visual break. The length of it visually psyches me out, and I start thinking man this is so long and boring. So by doing that it keeps me engaged.

3. I have been doing that, where I look at the ones I got right and go yup that why I got it right not really understanding why I got it right and the wrong questions I do look at them but I do not analyze them. I don't know why i do not do that. That is something I need to work on. I also like your advice or learning mastering the test and only then taking pts. Because if i continue to do what I was doing I was setting up myself up for failure and reaffirm that failure through low scoring pts.

I think you are absolutely right, I just need to work on fundamentals before I test myself. I just do not have a general understanding of the test and I need to study to the point I am just one with the test and can basically teach it to somebody else.

I appreciate your help, thank you. I have printed out your advice and will post it up so it reminds me what I need to do.

[californiauser]

My second ever PT was 2 points lower than my diagnostic while taking a prep course. Keep at it, the gains will come.